by Lari Don
The wyrm spoke to Theo, they both glanced at the sun, then she moved towards the calm sea.
“She’s not had a bath since she was trapped under the farm,” explained Theo. “She’ll return at sundown, in less than an hour.”
They watched as she slipped into the sea and vanished from sight.
“Can wyrms swim?” asked Molly.
“They’re related to Chinese river dragons,” said Atacama.
“They love water.”
“Isn’t the wyrm going to introduce us to the circling snake?” asked Beth.
“She promised to bring us here,” said Theo, “but was reluctant to speak to the snake herself.”
Molly prodded the spine with her toe. “Why did she spit this at me?”
“The spine is the key.”
“The key to what?” Molly picked it up. “Where is the snake?”
Theo pointed to the cliff. “In that cave.”
Molly looked round. The yellowish sandstone was tiger-striped with darker lines of rusty rock. There was an arch at one side of the cliff-ringed bay, near the rockfall gully they’d slid down, and lots of small holes along the base of the cliff, with one big dark entrance at the other end of the bay.
And there was a white horse on the clifftop.
Beth waved the kelpie over to the narrow gully. Innes shifted into his boy form and scrambled down the rockfall to join them.
“That wyrm is fast! I almost lost you. So, what are we looking for?”
“A big snake in a dark hole.” Molly pointed at the cave entrance.
“Where’s our serpentine guide?”
“Gone for a swim,” said Beth. “We’re on our own.”
They walked together towards the cave and peered inside. All Molly could see were dark rock walls leading towards a black space.
Theo said, “I can’t make light, in case I become an amphibian again.”
“I can make torches.” Beth headed towards the sea.
While Beth walked along the tideline looking for driftwood, the others waited at the cave’s mouth.
“I sense strong magic in there,” said Theo. “Caves are often full of interesting energy, because they have the earth all around rather than just underfoot. But there’s something else here. Something ancient and powerful.”
Beth returned with two driftwood branches. She murmured to them and they started to burn with blue-tinged flames.
“A salty light.” She smiled. “The life of the tree and the life of the sea. Good things to take with us into the earth.”
Beth handed Molly a torch and the light brightened the cave mouth, which was more colourful than Molly expected. The walls were striped with red, orange and yellow ridges, and a low green band where the tide rose each day. But the darkness of the cave stretched further than the warmth of the light.
“What does the circling snake circle?” asked Molly.
“That fishing village?” suggested Beth.
“The North Sea?” wondered Atacama.
“The whole planet?” asked Theo.
“Let’s find out.” Innes took the first step into the cave.
The cave was just wide enough to let them walk side by side, and its pebbly floor sloped slightly downwards. Molly stumbled over an empty beer can. “Would an ancient snake really live in a cave that locals use for parties?”
After fifty paces, the cave bent to the left, so Molly could no longer see sunlight when she glanced back. After a hundred paces, they reached a rock wall. There was nothing at the back of the cave but a tideline of litter.
“You sensed something ancient and powerful, did you?” Innes kicked a bottle towards Theo’s feet. “You’re such a fraud.”
“Whatever is in this cave can’t be obvious or all the locals would find it.”
“The wyrm gave us a key.” Molly held up the long grey spine. “Where’s the lock?”
They examined the wall at the back of the cave, holding the torches close. There were lots of cracks in the rock, creating a pattern like squint tartan.
Atacama pointed a paw at the very centre of the rock wall.
Molly saw a tiny round hole where several cracks met. She passed her torch to Theo and gently pushed the spine in. And in, and in, and in. Until the arm-long spine was almost completely hidden.
Nothing happened.
She pulled her sleeve over her hand, folded it to make a protective pad, jabbed her palm at the jagged end of the spine and shoved it hard. It disappeared completely into the stone.
The wall creaked, cracked along one diagonal line, split and separated. Beyond it, they could see another rocky tunnel.
They moved forward cautiously. This tunnel was carved from darker rock than the cave. They walked on, the blue-ish torchlight flickering.
Soon the tunnel opened up into a much wider space.
“Is it here?” Innes whispered.
“Shhh,” said Atacama.
They kept walking forward.
“How will we see it with so little light?”
A voice hissed, “Ssssee it? You don’t need to see it, because I can see you.”
Beth held her torch high.
They were in a huge cave with cliff-like walls and a rocky ridge at the back.
As Beth and Theo waved the torches, they realised the cliff to their right wasn’t a cliff. It was a massive snake’s head. And the ridge in the floor where the head was resting wasn’t rock, it was a tail. They’d found the head and tail of the circling snake.
The snake was black. Black scales, black eyes, black tongue flicking between black fangs. But behind the surface of the black scales, the torches seemed to be lighting up stars and galaxies at impossible distances.
“Ssssmall ones, come closer.”
The snake’s head and mouth didn’t move as he spoke. The words were inside Molly’s head, hissing like a badly tuned radio. They all took a few paces forward.
“Ssssomeone I trust must have given you a key. Who let you in?”
They looked at each other. Who wanted to talk to this gigantic creature?
Atacama shrugged, then spoke. “We freed the Wyrm of Cut Rigg from a curse. She gave us the key so we could ask you a favour.”
“Sssso ask your favour, little kitten.”
“We seek the first toy, created by the first snake. The rainbow-maker.”
“Ssssomeone has come to ask for my precious toy, at last. Why now?”
Theo said, “We wish to present it to the Promise Keeper, who’s currently a baby and being influenced by those who want curses to last forever. This gift will help us restore balance.”
“Ccccertainly an ambitious aim. But why you? Who are you?”
Beth said, “We are simply a group of friends trying to lift a curse.”
“Ssssimply? Nothing is simple. Each of you state who you are, what you are and why you personally need my rainbow-maker.”
So they each spoke in turn.
“I am Molly, a human, cursed to be a hare at inconvenient times. I need the rainbow-maker to lift my curse and to free a witch called Mrs Sharpe from the Keeper’s Hall.”
“I am Beth, a dryad. I promised to help Molly lift her curse, because she lifted mine. I need the rainbow-maker so I can keep my promise.”
“I am Atacama, a sphinx. I also need the rainbow-maker to keep my vow to Molly.”
“I am Theo, an elemental magician. I need the rainbowmaker to restore balance to the curse arc of the helix.”
“I am Innes, a kelpie. I need the rainbow-maker, because I promised to help Molly—”
“Sssspeak the truth, kelpie.” The snake’s voice rattled louder in their heads. “Speak the truth to me.”
Innes looked over at Beth, then at Atacama and Molly.
“Sssspeak the truth, or you all leave empty-handed!”
Innes looked up at the huge black serpent. “I need the rainbow-maker to rescue the curse-casters from the Keeper’s Hall, because I’m scared the crows will come for me next, drag me to the H
all and keep me prisoner there. That’s the truth, that’s why I need your toy.”
“Ssssneaky child. That is true, but it’s not the whole truth. Tell me why you’re scared, colt. Tell me why they would come for you.”
Innes sighed. “Because I’m a curse-caster too. Because, last week, I cast a curse.”
Chapter Fifteen
“Ssssuch a fascinating announcement, young kelpie. Do tell us more.”
“I am a curse-caster.” Innes’s voice rang round the cave. “Did everyone hear that? I’m a curse-caster. I cursed someone who thoroughly needed cursing, but in doing so I let one of those vicious crows hatch from a stone egg. Now the crows are capturing casters to protect their young and… and I’m afraid they might come for me next.”
“Innes, what have you done?” whispered Beth “Who have you cursed?”
“Shhh,” said Atacama. “Not here. Not now.”
The snake laughed inside their heads. “Sssso your friends are not happy with your honesty! But I enjoyed it. I’m too old to play with toys; I prefer to play with my visitors. You have amused me, particularly your faces as this pretty little pony spoke the truth. So I will give you my rainbow-maker, because you have entertained me and because what happens next might entertain me too. But I will also give you a warning: restoring balance is not easy; sometimes the helix twists the other way. Are you prepared to risk adding the complication of an ancient and powerful artefact to your problem?”
“Yes,” said Theo.
The snake laughed again, then the tip of his black galaxy-dotted tail pointed at the cave wall to their left.
They looked over. On a small shelf of dark rock, Molly saw a glint of light.
“Ssssnakes shed possessions like skins, but I have kept this all my life. You may take it.”
Molly was nearest, so she walked across the cave towards the shelf. As she got closer, she saw a long fang-shaped crystal, bending even the faint light in the cave into all the colours of the spectrum, creating pale rainbows on the wall behind.
She picked the crystal up, holding its icy smoothness carefully in the palm of her hand.
“Ssssad to see it go,” hissed the snake. “But eager to watch, from here and from everywhere I am, to see what will happen when you take that relic of my hatchling-hood out into the world. Farewell, little ones.”
“Thank you,” said Beth.
“We’re grateful, noble snake,” said Atacama.
Theo said, “It’s been an honour—”
“Sssstop now. I am weary of you. Take the trinket and go.” The snake closed his eyelids, slowly, like black moons eclipsing dark suns.
They walked out of the snake’s cave, through the tunnel and into the smaller cave. The rock-wall door slid shut as soon as Innes, walking half a pace behind the rest, stepped through.
Beth dropped her torch on the floor, slammed both hands into Innes’s chest and pushed him up against the cave wall. “You cast a curse? After all we’ve been through, you cursed someone? How could you?”
Innes didn’t push back. He just stood there and let her shove at him. But he answered quietly, “It’s complicated.”
“It’s not complicated!” Beth yelled. “It’s simple. Curses are dark and evil, and you don’t use them. It’s simple.”
Molly heard laughter hissing in her head. “Atacama’s right about not arguing in the cave. Let’s get out.”
Beth pushed at Innes again, slamming him harder into the wall. Then she picked up her torch, apologised to the wood for dropping it and walked away.
They followed her to the mouth of the cave, no one meeting Innes’s eyes.
When they reached the beach, the sun was just above the horizon and Molly could see a V-shaped ripple out at sea. Perhaps the wyrm was already on her way back.
Beth handed her torch to Molly, then stood right in front of Innes and shouted, “You told the snake the truth, but you’ve been lying to us. We’re meant to be your friends. So stop lying and tell us what you’ve done.”
“I wasn’t lying to you. I just didn’t tell you about… something. About one thing.”
“One thing? One curse? One life ruined? You’re on a quest trying to lift a curse, and you’ve cast a curse. That’s not just a lie, that’s a betrayal!”
Molly put her hand on Beth’s shoulder. “Don’t yell at him, yet. We don’t know what he’s done or why. Innes, tell us the whole story.”
“You know most of it already…”
Molly heard splashes above the gentle rhythm of the waves. “The wyrm’s on her way back. Maybe we should leave this until later.” She glanced over her shoulder.
And saw a line of dark-red creatures lumbering out of the sea.
“What are they?”
Everyone looked round.
“Because they don’t look friendly.”
The creatures had large human-shaped heads, but very wide mouths and one glowing yellow eye each. They had human shoulders and torsos, and arms so long they were dragging their huge clenched fists on the sand. Their lower bodies were almost horse-shaped, with four legs, but each leg had a flapping fin down its length and ended on a flipper-like foot.
They were already forming a semicircle from the shoreline to the cliff, standing at a distance but trapping Molly and her friends at the cave mouth, blocking their way to the gully, blocking their exit from the beach.
Innes said quietly, “They’re not friendly. They’re nuckelavee, from the north. They’re carnivorous, but they don’t usually hunt in packs.”
The largest nuckelavee opened its mouth, showing jaw-wide blades of bone rather than individual teeth. It spoke in a booming voice: “Give us the rainbow-maker and we’ll let you go. Refuse and we’ll eat you, then take the rainbow-maker anyway.”
Innes called across the sand, “Allow us to discuss your generous offer.” He turned to the group. “That’s clear enough.”
“What, we give them the rainbow-maker or we die?” said Molly.
“No, we give them the rainbow-maker or we fight.” He glanced over at the nuckelavee. “There are fifteen of them. That’s an uncomfortably large number. But we have to try. I’ll use hooves. Beth and Molly, use your torches. Atacama, use your claws. Toad-boy, you’d better sit this out, in case you become a toad again.”
“I don’t need to sit it out, I just need to pace myself. I can probably deal with six or seven, if the rest of you can manage two each.”
“That sounds fair,” said Innes.
“Wait a minute. This is impossible,” said Beth. “I don’t want to give them the rainbow-maker, but there are three times as many of them as there are of us, and they have blade-teeth and huge arms—”
“They also have one weakness,” said Innes. “They can only come out of the sea onto the land once a day. If we push them back into the water, they’ll have to stay there. Get them in the water, stay out of the water ourselves and we can win.”
Theo nodded. “I’ll take the ones furthest from the sea, because I can throw them in from a distance.”
Innes raised his voice. “We’re coming to give you the snake’s toy now.”
“Another lie,” murmured Beth, taking her torch back from Molly.
Innes sighed. “Give it a rest, Beth. In a fight, truth and lies can be weapons. If they think we’re giving them what they want, we can get nearer to the water before we attack. So this lie lets us choose the battleground. Molly, show them the rainbow-maker.”
Molly held the crystal up, seeing it properly for the first time. It was twice as long as one of her fingers, wide and smooth at its base, and sharp at its tip. As she held it up, the base faced the low sun and a sudden rush of light from the tip blinded her. She blinked, then angled it so that the light wasn’t shining straight through.
The five of them walked slowly towards the nuckelavee.
As they got closer, Molly realised why the nuckelavee looked dark red. It wasn’t the colour of their skin, because they didn’t have any skin. It was the colour of
their muscles. She could see thin lines of black blood pulsing through veins, and thin lines of yellow tendons stretching at knobbly white joints.
“Stop there!” shouted the largest nuckelavee. “Send the holder of the rainbow-maker forward alone.”
They all stopped.
“Should I go?” Molly said, nervously.
“No,” whispered Innes. “Not on your own. Everyone, remember, push them into the sea, don’t let them push us up the beach.”
Suddenly, Innes shifted into his horse form, knocking Molly one step sideways as his body took up more space.
Molly shoved the crystal fang into her pocket and zipped it up.
Beth spoke a word and the torches in the girls’ hands flamed higher.
Atacama’s fur rose on his back and he began to growl.
Theo kicked off his sandals and pressed his bare toes into the sand.
Then they all ran at the skinless one-eyed sea monsters in front of them.
Molly saw a silver shape appear in the air above Theo. A curved hook, dangling from a rope that faded into nothingness before it reached the height of the cliff behind them.
The hook swished through the air, caught the largest nuckelavee under the armpit, lifted the monster off the sand and swung it over the sea. The hook vanished and the monster fell into the water.
The other nuckelavee didn’t react immediately, so Innes kicked one hard in the chest, three times, knocking it back until it toppled into the sea. Atacama attacked another with teeth and claws, and forced it a handful of steps back into the water.
Molly and Beth jabbed their torches at the nuckelavee nearest them. The monster Molly was attacking took a step back. But only one step. All four flippery feet were still firmly on the sand.
Theo had created another hook to lift another nuckelavee. The horse and the cat were attacking two more monsters, but the leader was shouting from the sea, “Get away from the water’s edge!”
Now the nuckelavee were lumbering further from the sea.
And they were fighting back. They were swinging their heavy fists, on arms longer than Molly’s arm and torch combined.
The monsters didn’t move fast on their finned and flippered legs. They didn’t have to, because they could swing those huge pendulum arms with terrifying pace and momentum.